Limitless Path

They found something rather interesting in the desert, Beth comparing maps to find that it was in what used to be the country of Chad. Beth wasn't sure if the country still even existed at this point, but there were clearly quite a few people gathered in the desert, including two large camps that, on closer inspection, appeared to be people well-used to living on the road. Perhaps nomads of some kind, used to a traveling lifestyle even before the Path appeared, the two camps were positioned close to each other but still with enough distance between that they were distinct entities. To the south was something that Beth would call, if she were being a bit generous, a town, though shanty town was much more the description that came to mind immediately.

The place was a large cluster of makeshift buildings, many of them constructed of old pieces of corrugated metal or sections of plywood. Still, for all that it was a bit haphazard in many places, the area appeared quite clean, and there were also several buildings that looked to be in very good repair. In fact, based on a closer look, Beth saw that it appeared there was a project underway to rebuild the town from the center out, as there were more than half a dozen blocks that were built in a much better style. The whole place had a decent defensive wall around it as well, with a wide ditch with spikes and some small rune formations along the center of the bottom.

The place they had all gathered around was a pit, but not just a little hole in the ground that led to a cave or some such. Oh no, this was a truly massive hole, a tunnel through space itself, a feeling of weight and enclosed distance beyond anything Beth had felt so far sweeping over her when she looked down into its depths. The pit was layered, with rings of buildings or caves or terraces leading down, and down, and down some more. The ship's sensors couldn't even penetrate to the furthest depths, only returning the first several miles of pit, and some of that was vague or indistinct. The place was filled with mana, and Beth found that it was siphoning mana from the surroundings, pulling in large amounts and layering it down through the depths. She supposed that's why the nomad camps and the town were fairly lightly defended considering they were set up in the middle of the wilds. The heaviest defenses they had all pointed towards the pit and even those Beth thought wouldn't withstand much above level two hundred attacking them in force.

The place was just so curious that they had to investigate what was happening. Beth directed Blood to land the ship a little way outside the town to the south, the ship sinking a foot into the sand with a thump before the landing legs caught more solid rock underneath. Beth could see a large crowd gathering, which had started when they first flew over, but now it was practically the whole town at the edge of the wall. Beth packed the ship up after they disembarked, the ship disappearing behind a sand dune causing quite an audible commotion from the town. When Beth walked up said sand dune, she found the crowd in a bit of turmoil, many pointing and speaking rapidly. A new wave went through the crowd when Bjorn topped the sand dune and the people realized just how big he was, and Beth approached while giving them a wave, trying to signal that she wasn't hostile. She didn't recognize the language being spoken, but as she got close somebody stepped forward and yelled in what sounded very much like French, though Beth didn't really speak the language.

"Parlez-vous francais?" the man said.

"No, uh, pas de francais?" Beth replied, thinking she had it right.

"Oh, American?" the man asked in an accent.

"Yes? English? Universal?" Beth replied, asking the last in Universal.

"Petit English. Small? Yes?" the man said.

"Small, yes," Beth agreed, the rest of her group coming up behind her. She could see the visible reactions to them, with a lot of whispering and pointing, especially at one member in particular. Beth glanced over and realized the extremely pale Val with her glowing red and gold eyes was quite the sight for the locals, all of whom were rather dark of skin, though Beth did see a single woman of rather fair skin tone at the back of the crowd.

"Fight? Take, uh, thief?" the man asked, concern in his voice.

"No fight," Beth said, shaking her head. "Pit. Hole. Look down, go in."

"Oui!" he exclaimed. "Pit deep. Many, uh, you say, uh, big animal? Big thing deep. How you say? We say, uh, monstre en colère. Monster, yes?"

"He's saying there're monsters down there?" asked Val, setting off another round of exclamations from the people.

"He might just be calling it that because of the language," Beth said, a little unsure. She turned back to him and asked, pointing at her eye while she did, "They say monster? Or beast? Beast and monster, uh, monstre, different thing."

"Oh, Oui! Oui! Beast, how you say, beast is very big. Many men big. Very long teeth. We kill, you say, uh, hunt the small ones," the man said, his accent rather thick.

"I see, I see," Beth said. "You go very deep? Down far?"

She had gestured with her hands, trying to mime going deep in the pit.

"Non, non! We go, uh, deux kilometres. Only deux," he said, holding up two fingers. "Un kilomtres more, very bad. Beast, uh, yell, yes? Yell strong, big yell! Cut when beast yell."

"So, you're saying deeper in they use sonic attacks? Sound attacks? They yell and it cuts you, damages you?" Beth asked for clarity.

"Oui, Oui! Only town, uh, leader? Town, uh, maire, what is maire en Anglais?" the man said, gesturing heavily with one hand.

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"You mean the mayor? The person leading the town?" Beth asked, trying to work through the language barrier.

"Oui! L'anglais est mayor! He goes down, uh, tres profond, yes? Far! He has, uh, many beast. Many kills, yes, that est it. Many kills deep. He is tres fort, yes?" the man said, gesturing widely with his arms.

"The mayor is very strong, yes?" Beth said, chuckling a little when she realized she was mimicking his speech patterns. "He goes down far, kills many?"

"Oui! Many, many!" the man agreed.

"Is he here now?" Beth asked, pointing at the ground. "Or is he down there?" she then pointed at the pit and asked.

"Down! Down far now!" the man replied excitedly.

"Okay for us to go down?" Beth asked, gesturing at herself, her companions, and then miming moving forward and then moving down.

"Oui! Pit is open, yes? All go. But, careful, yes? Many beast, yes?" the man said, nodding before holding up his hands and waving them in a circle before clapping them together.

"We'll be careful, yes?" Beth said in response.

"Oui, careful. Go down, uh, un peu?" the man held up his right hand, finger and thumb close together.

"Little way?" asked Beth, mimicking the gesture.

"Oui! Little, yes? Careful," the man replied, nodding.

"We ought to get some extra Universal crystals," Beth said to the rest of the team.

"I have one spare one, but it could only give one person the language. It's a cheap one," Val said. "It would have to charge up after one use."

"You couldn't say that earlier?" Beth asked, rolling her eyes and huffing in frustration.

"You seemed to be doing well enough," Val replied with a grin and a shrug, reaching up with a multi-jointed arm to readjust her fancy, wide-brimmed hat.

"Crystal," Beth said, holding out her hand. Val tsked but held out a hand, dropping the crystal in Beth's hand. There was more murmuring at that, and Beth turned to the man she had been speaking to, saying, "Crystal for language. Hold to head, teach language. Want to use?"

"Language? Anglais, oui?" the man asked, appearing concerned.

"Non," Beth replied. "Universal. Language of all. Language of universe, yes?"

"Hmm," the man replied, seeming unsure.

"Don't have to," Beth said, handing the crystal back to Val. "An option. You say, uh, possible, yes?"

"Oh, oui," the man replied. "Uh, non. Non cristal."

"Okay," Beth said with a nod. "May we go?"

"Oh, oui, oui," the man said, moving to the side.

Beth led her team through town, silently chuckling at the fact that she also was leading a large contingent of the townsfolk themselves. Looking around, though the place was a bit ramshackle, there was still order to it, and the roads were surprisingly clean. She expected a town built in the middle of the desert to have a little more sand, perhaps, or even just dirt on the streets, but all the roads were paved with rough stone blocks and looked freshly swept or cleaned. The buildings, despite many of them being a bit haphazard, were also rather clean, and the central area of town, where the construction was ongoing even now, had buildings of three and four stories made of stone with wood or clay tile roofs. Overall, it appeared the town wasn't doing too badly, and there was even a small fountain, only about the size of a regular car, in the center of the town square with a little water flowing through it.

Beth led her team to the opposite end of town, where they found the wall more heavily reinforced and a couple dozen people stationed on guard duty, though a few of them were definitely there just to watch what was happening and maybe take advantage of a good opportunity. Beth walked out the opposite gate to where they had entered, finding herself suddenly on the edge of the pit, the vast space yawning before her like the maw of some great beast. She peered down into the mouth of the monster, leaning forward to get a better look, hearing some exclamations that she thought were to be careful, though they were in French or, she assumed, Arabic. She was pretty sure that was the other common language in the region, though they hadn't covered Africa that extensively in high school.

Straightening, she looked at her team, all of them either giving her nods or shrugs, and she gave a quick hand gesture to Blood, who leapt into the pit. The townsfolk weren't happy with that, exclaiming in surprise and dismay, but Beth just waved it off. When Blood signaled it was fine, the rest of the team jumped in one-by-one, with Beth taking up the rear, giving the people at the gate and on the wall a wave before leaping forward and down. She fell for a handful of seconds before impacting solid ground, far more solid than she was expecting. The pit was clearly not matched to the desert it was in, as the place was made of heavy, dense stone that wasn't at all like the sand or even general rock in the area. She waved for Blood to scout, Val following fairly close behind her girlfriend as she sniffed out what was in the area. It didn't take very long for her to find something, their entrance, perhaps combined with the power they all radiated, having attracted some creatures up to the top rung.

The beasts that they fought then were large, hulking things, like some combination of gorilla and a warthog. They moved almost entirely on all fours and had thick, hunched backs that reminded her much more of a wild boar than the physique she would expect from a gorilla. Their front legs, or arms, it was kind of hard to tell, were longer than their rear legs and had thick-fingered hands at the end instead of feet. They were weird beasts, but also very simple minded; if they saw one of the party members, they would immediately charge full tilt and either try to trample the person or smash them with their arms, the only time they went to two legs instead of four. It made their attacks very obvious and very easy to dodge or counter, party members like Bjorn and Sera not even bothering to move out of the way. The two heavies of the group would just absorb the charge and hit back, very often overwhelming the lower-level beasts and knocking them down or sending them flying.

They killed a decent handful of beasts as they made their way slightly around the ring they found themselves on. The pit was tiered, with every tier being a wide ring the took up the whole circumference of the pit. The terrain was rough in places, and they had to navigate around obstacles or fight through large groups of beasts, making it a bit difficult to just go straight to the edge and go down to the next tier. It wasn't too much trouble, however, as the beasts up here weren't exactly at their paygrade, with quite a few of the beasts not even level one hundred. Beth assumed the two camps and town were taking advantage of that, likely being attacked by rather weak beasts that escaped the pit. They could also farm this first tier pretty easily, netting them some good experience and loot. She imagined the beasts probably had pretty damn good meat on them, not to mention the fact that it was much cooler in the pit and there was quite a bit of water even on the first tier, as well as the plant life that accompanied it.

Moving down tiers, they found more beasts, and the levels of those beasts rapidly increasing. A couple tiers in and they were at level two hundred, another three or four tiers and it was close to level three hundred. Leaning over the edge and looking down, the pit continued for quite a distance. The terrain was also more varied the further in they went, with the rings sometimes not being very even or just taking up a small section of the side of the pit. The thing that fascinated Beth was the whole place wasn't considered a dungeon or trial, as they had still not received any messages about the place even though they were more than half a dozen tiers down at this point. If the place kept going like it was, they would quite likely hit areas with level four hundred beasts before they were done, and probably a whole lot more. That wasn't her primary concern right this moment, however, as their quick rest on their current tier was interrupted by the sounds of battle.

"You hear that?" Beth asked the group as they gathered at the edge, looking at the next ring.

"My bet's on that mayor guy," Andrea said.

"Oh, you're right," Beth said, staring down. "He's supposed to be strong, might be down here himself. I can see a whole bunch of heat signatures clustered together just to our right on the next tier down; bet that's where it's coming from."

"I'll check it out," Blood grunted, leaping down the cliff face, literally propelling herself down with hand and footholds to reach the bottom faster. The rest of the team repositioned in the meantime, moving around the edge a couple thousand feet until they were right above the racket before waiting a minute for Blood to return.